Tuesday, 12 May 2015

Real solutions to the Climate Crisis

Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis
(Maputo Meeting)

On the 21-23 April 2015 a meeting on Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis
took place at the Kaya Kwanga Conference Centre in Mozambique (Maputo), to
build solidarity for Climate justice and provide peoples solutions for the
climate crisis.

The conference, “Seeding Climate Justice”
brought together more than 135 people from movements such as La Via Campesina,
Friends of the Earth Africa, the Rural Women’s Assembly, World March of Women,
WoMining as well as people from local organisations from Mozambique, Zimbabwe,
Zambia, South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Kenya. The South Durban Community
Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) being one of the local organisations invited to
partake in the conference.

The
conference took place over 3 days. Within these days participants from
different places got to share their distresses to do with the Climate Crisis. On day one, a welcome and introduction of the
conference was done by Annabelle Lemos (Director-JA/FOE Mozambique).
Participants were asked to introduce themselves and say which country they are
from. A presentation on the Planetary
Crisis was done by Meena Raman (Friends of the Earth Malaysia). Participants then
shared their life stories; Alfredo Morais (member of Zambezi community) shared
his story about how fishing is a very important part of his life and many other
Zambian people. He went on to say that, “without fishing they would have no
source of food, they would have no life”. A representative from the Mozambican
Farmer’s Union (UNAC) talked about the impacts of agriculture in their
community. Jose Elosegui (from the Latin American Coordination of Rural
Organisations) spoke about the impacts of climate change in Latin America. He
said that there were more floods and that people who fish for a living are
suffering because of it. SDCEA’s coordinator
Desmond D’sa was asked to give a presentation on Organising for an Energy
Transformation at a National and Community level.

In terms of a way forward participants
drew up a Maputo Declaration for Real Peoples Solutions to Climate Crisis,
which included their issues and concerns/demands. A press release was then done
on Xenophobia because of the xenophobic attacks that were taking place in South
Africa.

With all that I have learnt from the
conference, I can now share this information and educate people in my community
about the Climate crisis and real solutions for it.It was great being part of the Seeding Climate
Justice conference, I learnt a lot and enjoyed the meeting and networking with
people from different countries.